Happy Friday! (Sorry, this is a long one)

It is 6:30am. I can’t believe how pretty it looks so early in the morning. Clear skies, this nice sunny glow. It’s amazing. I can’t recall if in my last post I mentioned we had cleared the appeals period and was good to go with the usage permitting. Wednesday, July 12, we submitted the construction documents to the city and re-submitted the health documents to the county health department. Please pray it will go well. 😊

Thinking about the patience I’m having to exhibit while playing the waiting game. I’m only in the documentation stage! 😩 makes me recall being pregnant with my girls. Just the anticipation of becoming a mother with my first child, and the knowledge of the pure discomfort I’d have to go through with my second child was enough to make me go nuts. 😅

I admit, I was not one of those females who enjoyed pregnancy. “The Glow” or whatever, seems like a fable to keep the population at a steady pace. I absolutely hated being pregnant. I was uncomfortable all the time. I couldn’t have a glass of wine, which was a big deal when dealing with a 2 year old. Some days I really really needed that glass. But, I told myself. If I didn’t do it with Janesa, I shouldn’t do it with Jena. No matter what studies say about a glass of red wine being healthy for the heart. It just didn’t feel right. Haha. Obviously, I don’t think I was disciplined in the proper ways when it came to taking my vitamins and doing the end of labor exercises. However, I think I did an ok job. She came out a pretty and healthy baby.

So. As I was saying. It was not easy for me to be pregnant. Although I wasn’t huge, I was still the biggest I had ever been in my whole life. (I won’t say the weight for fear of angering your typical pregnant sized women) But I admit, there’s no way I could have handled getting any larger. It was just, uncomfortable. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat what I wanted, I felt pretty emotional. Haha. It was unbelievable. The memory of the second birth still feels fresh in my mind almost 15 months later.

Oddly at the same time. I was so excited of the thought of welcoming another baby. I couldn’t wait to see if she looked like me or her dad. I was a little scared she wouldn’t be as pretty as her big sister. And for someone who has been compared to her little sister all her life, and not usually on the positive end of the compliments, I just wanted my daughters to be on the same ground. So I prayed every chance I got that my Jena would be as beautiful as my Janesa and that they wouldn’t be compared in their outward appearance, but instead on their inner selves.

Obviously now that they are both over the age of one. It’s easier to see what their inner selves are like as opposed to just their outside…. honestly. My girls are very much a like. Which is both bad and good, because I’m comparing them already. But they are. It’s because they are very much influenced by their dad. But they also exhibit some of my inner self. For these reasons. They are very similar. But they do have their differences. I cannot wait to watch them grow and grow. I hope that Just Right becomes something they can be proud of their mom for doing. And hope that they will not feel a burden because I might have to sacrifice time with them from time to time.

As noted before, I’m writing this before 7am. At the moment I am at a nearby Starbucks because it is the only place that is open at 5am that has free wi-fi. So although I’d prefer to be at a locally owned space. That hour between 5 and 6 is very valuable time because it means I can get home an hour sooner and get a hours worth of more work done. It means less time away from my girls and my husband, even if I had to wake up at 4am to be here. It’s worth it.

It’s interesting, everyone who hears about the cafe, how young my girls are, and assume that it’s going to be too hard for me and my family, don’t understand that as a mom. It’s hard anyways. But it’s not impossible. Yes. It’s hard to get up at 4am, but when you are used to waking up in the middle of night just to see if your little ones are covered up properly and breathing, it’s not actually hard. It’s routine. When you are used to your now 3 year old sneaking into your bed in the middle of the night and you have to carry them back to their bed, or if it’s early enough, be forced to go sleep next to them so that they don’t wake up their sister. It’s not that hard.

What I’m saying is that although this dream seems impossible or too big for someone like me. Who is to say that is true. Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft. All of these guys had to start somewhere. But imagine, if they were women with children. Not only could their dreams have taken flight, but it would have been done in a not so greedy matter. Who know sacrifice more than moms?

So although it seems as if I’m sacrificing my girls in the process of making my dreams come true. I can’t say that it’s true. I still make an effort to get home before my husband does. I still pick up my 3 year old from preschool. I still make dinner, clean house, do laundry. Maybe not as often as I should. But the jobs of being a mother do not cease, whether I work for myself or work for someone else. Working for someone else, did not work for me because it sacrificed my children. I felt so guilty taking care of other kids all day, instead of taking care of my own. This is how I became a stay at home mom. Never had I even considered becoming a stay at home mom, until I realized, what I was doing at the time, wasn’t worth leaving my daughter every day for. What’s worse, is that job didn’t pay well enough, nor did it give me the career I truly wanted. So, what was I sacrificing my daughter for?

Right now. I am trying to find that balance. Trying to figure out, how to sacrifice less time with my girls, and instead sacrifice something I’m already used to sacrificing. If it means less sleep in the middle of the night. Let me tell you. As a mom of 3 year old, who couldn’t sleep through the night her first year of life, this is nothing. Haha. I know there are a lot of mom’s and even dad’s who know exactly what I’m talking about.

After she got out of that stage, I found my habits had changed and I couldn’t really sleep as long any more. 4 hours of sleep was luxury. So, what is someone to do when your awake 20 hours in a day, while your child is only awake for maybe 12 – 14 hours of that time? You start forming bad habits.

I used to pull all nighters just watching Korean drama’s because I felt like it was my only get away from the reality in which I’m either a mom or a wife. Never a woman. Never amounting to much. Because what can be done in the middle of the night. Where can you go with a baby in tow?

By the time my daughter turned one, she was a professional walker and an unstable runner. That turned into her becoming an actual runner within a couple of months. (I’m sure many have heard people call their children this.) It’s something I never imagined I’d have to go through. My daughter was 1. How can you prepare yourself for the sudden playful nature of a one year old, thinking that running away from you is a game? How do you tell a one year old that cars are dangerous, that if she walks away from me at the wrong time, she may never see me again?

I’m sure there a lot of “know-it-all’s” out there who have their opinion on the matter. But until you actually experience it yourself. Until you understand that children are their own person from the minute they are born and do whatever it is their inner self wants them to do, until they can understand the concept of consequence and discipline.

It’s a fools dream to think you can do something better than the mother of a child who exhibits this behavior naturally. It’s not taught. It’s not the environment. It’s a natural desire to run. To play. To laugh. To be innocent with a little bit of deviousness because we naturally have that in all of us. Just like a babies need to sleep for a certain amount of time. Or to walk when they want to walk. Dance when the music is playing. These behaviors aren’t really taught. It happens in their own timeline. So please don’t fool yourself that you can control, understand, analyze another human being. It’s just another fable.

After coming to this realization myself and on those rough days when the unexpected would happen. Wine became an outlet for relaxation, as it does for many mom’s. It gives you a sense of outward appreciation for a well crafted product, that you can get at home with very little effort. After awhile, I began to realize it was becoming more than an outlet, and instead, a habit. I didn’t like that feeling at all.

So I decided to channel these mundane and troublesome habits into something productive. Into something innovative. Into something that I know will help other mom’s who are in the same shoes as I once was. I am channeling my dreams into reality because my girls deserve a mother who doesn’t feel like she’s wasting away, but instead inspired by her girls to do something more with herself.

My girls truly drive me.

They show me that there is no reason to be afraid, what’s scarier than bringing in to this world another human being? What’s scarier in this world than taking care and raising that human being to be someone that feels that they are both precious and valued in their own unique ways.

Especially when outside forces want to say otherwise.

So.

Instead of just worrying about things I can’t control. I want to provide them with a safe space. I want to be an example of what they can accomplish if they put in the effort to accomplish it.

I think it’s funny when people ask if I’ve ever done anything like this before. If I’ve ran a restaurant or opened a cafe or anything like that. Usually I say no. Because that’s the truth. But there are many things I’ve gone into, without ever having experience. Marriage. Motherhood. College. Traveling. Haha. All things have a starting point. What is it that I do know? I know that with proper preparation. Proper training. Proper mentors. Proper support systems. I can do this.

I can do this, because it’s no longer just about me and my dreams. I have made it more than just that. I have brought the outside – in. I am determined to open up this cafe, and more so that I can redefine affordable luxury that women need. So that I can show others – there is no such thing as impossible – there is just an untapped opportunity no one has yet to discover. I’d like it if people would stop asking if I have experience. And ask me. Why?

I’ll tell them. Why not. Haha. But then I will say, because there is a need for us moms to find a different outlet of balance between motherhood/wifehood/ and being a woman. I want to be an encouragement to them because there are just too many out there that devalue themselves because the appreciation for them are just left unsaid way to much and for way too long. So. If this is only the beginning. Let it be the beginning. Because the end is no where in site for Just Right. I can’t wait to get started. I can’t wait to show others what this dream is really about.

I hope you enjoy. Sorry for the blabber (I didn’t intend for it to take this route, but some how, this is where we have come.)